This is a good read, especially as the school year starts. The author got pregnant at university. She concludes by saying she feels she’s failed every woman who gets pregnant and drops out.
I’d tell her to try. Just try. Even if you don’t think it’s going to work out, try it anyway.
On a different note, if you are pregnant in university and you need some of these supports the author mentions in her article, I’m very confident that using this site, friends of this site and other sources like Sisters for Life, we can get you what you need in any Canadian city. If you are currently in university, pregnant and feeling alone, please don’t hesitate to contact me through this site, Facebook and/or my work (a quick Google of my name brings contact info up).








I’m going to add a caveat here. If you are pregnant and in university, be prepared to field the comments:”do you really want to do this? There is always abortion, you know.”
It is extremely common to be ambivalent or outright reject a pregnancy at the beginning. Feeling like this does not mean you will reject your kid, it does not mean you will be a bad mother–all it means is that you have had a huge shock, your life has taken a detour from the path you expected it to take, and you need some time to come to terms with this new path.
You can do this. Surround yourself with positive people ( there are plenty out there), take a deep breath, and look the naysayers in the eye and tell them just where that can put their unwelcome opinions.
I had my first baby when I was 23 after graduating from BYU. Though my husband and I waited a little to get school out of the way, one of the things that I loved about BYU was how baby-friendly a campus it was. Husbands and wives would meet on campus with the stroller and the diaper bag and switch off responsibilities, many of the men’s bathrooms had baby changing stations (and this in the mid-90s!), I actually sat in one of my finals with a woman who had a week-old baby! (Only now, after 4 (soon to be 5!) of my own do I realize how amazing that young mother was.)
It was still likely to be the exception than the rule that a student would be a parent but it was great to see so many people doing it and not being afraid for their lives.
I had the impression that being pregnant at University was a tough go. In this time where support is very important I thought University’s offered little support and while Women’s Centers can offer referrals to Morgantaler or Planned Parenthood places they seem to not list places that are there to help with carrying through to birth.
Melissa, you are right. It’s sad. Lots of women feel unsupported and ambivalent, and with so many people offering abortion as a “choice”…It starts to get at the notion that it doesn’t feel like a choice to many of these women at all.